Jazz Articles

Our daily articles are carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. You can find more articles by searching our website, see what's trending on our popular articles page or read articles ahead of their published dates on our Coming Soon page. Read our daily album reviews.

Book Review

Philip Glass: Words Without Music - A Memoir

by Nenad Georgievski
August 1, 2015

Words Without Music: A Memoir Philip Glass 432 pages ISBN: 0871404389 Liveright 2015 While composer John Cage is the first name in contemporary classical music that most people will likely know, the music of composer Philip Glass is probably more likely to be the first sound of it they actually hear. His music and influence are literary widespread everywhere. Today Glass reigns supreme as America's most successful living composer and his music ...

Album Review

Stefan Keune/Dominic Lash/Steve Noble: Fractions

Read "Fractions" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
August 1, 2015

German reedman Stefan Keune has shown a strong affinity for British improv since making a connection with drummer Paul Lytton in 1990. Since then his discography records a number of dates with guitarist John Russell, including appearances at London's now dormant Freedom of the City festival. This limited edition LP, recorded at Russell's Mopomoso gathering at the Vortex in September 2013, suggests he's found a potent new outlet in the company of mainstays of two different generations of British improvisers ...

Album Review

Rolling Stones: From the Vault: The Marquee Club Live in 1971

Read "From the Vault: The Marquee Club Live in 1971" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
August 1, 2015

From The Vault: The Marquee Club Live In 1971 documents the end of the Rolling Stones' tour of the United Kingdom that year. The band had not toured at home since 1966 and touted this tour as the concert-equivalent of good bye to Great Britain before becoming tax exiles and absconding to the South of France and the historic recording of Exile on Main Street (Rolling Stones, 1972) at the Villa Nellcôte. Both events were recently the subjects of author ...

Catching Up With

Mark Shuman: Morphine's Music Still Resonates With me Today

by Nenad Georgievski
August 1, 2015

Music documentaries made by fans easily fall into two categories: they either fend off non-believers or they turn them into true believers and draw them into the fold. Director Mark Shuman's film Journey of Dreams about the band Morphine begins almost by excluding the non-believers but all the way through it opens its gates for everyone to see and feel the story about this seminal band of the '90s. Wrongfully tagged as an alternative band at the time, ...

Catching Up With

Spiro: Making Music that is Dispassionate and Emotional

by Nenad Georgievski
July 31, 2015

The Bristol four piece ensemble Spiro makes music that straddles and bridges a multiplicity of genres. With each consecutive album it redefines what it means to be a strings ensemble. It constantly breaks every boundary imaginable, but above all it's aim is to make gorgeously joyous music. It's music has a strange effect on one's senses. Upon first hearing it feels like gentle tingling and suddenly its mesh of sounds and melodies awakens you and moves you. It's an understatement ...

Album Review

Ran Blake: Ghost Tones: Portraits of George Russell

Read "Ghost Tones: Portraits of George Russell" reviewed by Jakob Baekgaard

by Jakob Baekgaard
July 31, 2015

Sometimes an album can haunt you. It can be a companion that follows you through life. In the liner notes for the album: Ghost Tones: Portraits of George Russell (A-Side Records, 2015), pianist and composer Ran Blake reveals his love for composer and bandleader George Russell's album Jazz Workshop (RCA-Victor, 1957): “I listened to it so much that I wore out several copies, each time having to revisit the record store to replace it." Blake's love for ...

Album Review

Ingrid Laubrock Anti-House: Roulette of the Cradle

Read "Roulette of the Cradle" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
July 31, 2015

The fact that Ingrid Laubrock's Anti-house is an established working band is borne out by the degree of trust the German saxophonist places in her world class cast of collaborators. But even though she doesn't put in an appearance until part way through the second track, her imprint is all over the outfit's third release, which builds confidently on the success of its predecessors; the first outing of the same name (Intakt, 2010) and Strong Place (Intakt, 2013). Laubrock has ...

Album Review

Manu Katché: Touchstone for Manu

Read "Touchstone for Manu" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
July 31, 2015

Drummer Manu Katché found the spotlight supplying the groove to recordings by rock artists Peter Gabriel and Sting, then to jazz artists Jan Garbarek and Herbie Hancock. His four ECM recordings as leader showed him to be an accomplished composer and bandleader as well. Now that he has apparently left the label, Touchstone for Manu is a specially-priced compilation that gives roughly equal weight to each of those sessions. The style is basically acoustic jazz, with rock grooves ...

Album Review

Kuku: Ballads & Blasphemy

Read "Ballads & Blasphemy" reviewed by James Nadal

by James Nadal
July 31, 2015

Yorubaland is a region of southwest Nigeria which extends into parts of Benin and Togo. It is the ancestral homeland of the Yoruba people, and remains a vital source of cultural identity, especially spiritual music and rhythms. Kuku is a singer/songwriter who though born in the United States, is a Yoruba Nigerian, now residing in Paris. He has been in a cross-cultural existence his whole life, brought to light in his 2012 release “Soldier of Peace." Ballads & Blasphemy finds ...

Extended Analysis

Spike Orchestra: Ghetto

by Phil Barnes
July 31, 2015

What does it mean to make jazz records halfway through the second decade of the 21st Century? Can there still be a place at the cutting edge for an art form whose commercial peak was in the 1950s and which the majority of the population still associate with the middle of the road vocal records of that time? It doesn't help that our major labels are content to churn out ever more 'expanded,' 'ultimate' and 'complete' curatorial reissues of the ...